Actor and mimicry artist Azees Nedumangad has said that he will not mimic actor Ashokan on stage anymore. During an interview for a television channel, actor Ashokan had expressed his dissatisfaction with Azees's mimicry and said the mimcry artist's impersonation of him was 'bad'.
Azees responded to the actor’s comment during the press meet of the movie ‘Pazhanjan Pranayam’, after a mediaperson sought his opinion on it. “I had seen that interview of Ashokan chettan, which was sent to me by his friend. If a person finds the mimicry distasteful, then the person has the freedom to express that. That is his choice. But now, I have taken a decision not to mimic Ashokan chettan anymore,” he said.
Azees, however, maintained that Ashokan had personally told him he liked his stage performances. “I don't know why he responded like this now. If a person doesn't like being teased, I believe it needs to be stopped immediately. Even if that person is your friend. That's why I said I won't be mimicking Ashokan chettan anymore," Azees Nedumangad said.
Artists such as Azees Nedumangad often mimic the character Raghavan, played by Ashokan in the Mammotty-starrer ‘Amaram’. In the interview, Ashokan, however, expressed his unhappiness with the way Azeez impersonated him. Here is the excerpt from the interview: "There are mimicry artists who perform well. Similarly, there are people who mimic us badly. And there are people who irritate us.
They zero in on some minute point and then stretch it. There are many people who make fun of us. They all make a name for themselves by mimicking actors, earn money, and lead a life. Let them do that. There are several who deliberately poke fun. There are some who do it out of affection…. When done with affection, then they just imitate the original. While other times, the performance is stretched 10 times than the original performance. I don’t know if I looked and acted like people have been portraying me from the movie 'Amaram'.
“Other than that, there are some people who regularly mimic me. Azees is someone who does mimicry well. He is one of those people I mentioned earlier. He himself has said that he became popular after mimicking actors like us. That's each person's choice. Mimicry is a profession for many. We cannot comment about anything about that," Ashokan had said during the interview.
